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Why is there such a high percentage of people in the Bitcoin world that get pulled into ugly ideologies?

Quite often lately I run across the Twitter profiles of people that I hung out with 5, 6, 7, 8 years ago and I’m disturbed to see that they are now red pilled misogynists, or white nationalists, or tyrant supporters, or nazi sympathizers, etc, etc. It’s really quite a bummer!

There is a wave of this in American culture at large at the moment, but it seems to be hitting the Bitcoin community much harder than the general population… why?

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Discussion

Trey Walsh 1y ago

Chronically online syndrome, mixed with undealt with childhood trauma and some sort of emotional neglect is usually my theory!

HannahMR 1y ago

but why the correlation with bitcoiners? ...why the overlap on that venn diagram?

Eric FJ 🪬⚡️ 1y ago

Online, alone, looking for a way out, find Bitcoin. Unfortunate but makes sense to me

Zach⚡️ 1y ago

It's because understanding Bitcoin requires you to understand and accept that common knowledge and established systems are wrong or immortal, and people who can come to that conclusion on economics can also do so for history, science, religion, politics, etc.

Not defending people on either side, but that is the most simple explanation of how that occurs.

HannahMR 1y ago

"either side"? You maybe be infected with the political lens disease that's going around.

HannahMR 1y ago

Right it's the idea that Bitcoiners have stepped out of the mainstream. But why the ugly? I would expect better of people who have abandoned following the crowed and believing the media, etc.

Zach⚡️ 1y ago

When I say either side, I'm not talking about right or left. There are people who believe things they are told, and there are people who come to their own conclusions. Many conclusions are ugly, or at least seem very ugly without an understanding of where someone is coming from.

Specifically, ideologies you listed like that of the Nazis, Misogynists, or racists are very reactionary beliefs. The scary truth is that there is no difference between the humans living in Nazi Germany and you and me. If you cannot understand how someone got to a conclusion, you will never be able to change their mind.

Old Ayn Rand quote - "Contradictions do not exist. Whenever you think that you are facing a contradiction, check your premises. You will find that one of them is wrong."

Aaron van Wirdum 1y ago

Bitcoin attracts contrarians.

A bit outdated (unfortunately) but good piece on this topic: https://read.pourteaux.xyz/p/the-dawn-and-twilight-of-the-contrarian

JoKingly 1y ago

Would love to think so, however, when looking at X/Twitter #Bitcoin also attracts sheep that all keep shouting the same lines over and over. In any case I like associating with contrarians and librarians. 😁

Aldin 1y ago

Men with self respect do not like to be called names and shamed by women. So there will be a natural rejection of any element in society that goes too far into that direction.

You can double down, but that will not make them submit.

HannahMR 1y ago

No one likes to be called names and/or shamed. That is not unique to males.

But you do something just cuz someone else told you not to, you are still their slave.

Aldin 1y ago

You do what they want, you are slave. You do the oposite, you are a slave too. If you do your own independent thing - follow your own conscience - you will also be called names. Because that too is a sign of rebelion. Maybe the biggest one.

That is what I think is going on here with your friends, and that is why you accuse them of all these things.

HannahMR 1y ago

Accuse them? Nah dude, they are saying it right to my face and/or posting it right to Twitter, publicly.

Aldin 1y ago

This is the thing, that I am skeptical about. For years, nazi, misogynist etc. have been terms used to cancel people for pretty innocuous thing, and for speach about objective facts. It has been a copy-pasta for vilifying oponents. Even completely non political centrists found themselves out of nowhere suddenly under scrutiny just because they didn't follow along.

And now you come and talk about bitcoin nazies. Sure.

6a728ff1... 1y ago

Bitcoin is a tool just like every technological innovation throughout history. Tools assist us in leveraging a desired outcome efficiently (i.e. reduce the amount of human time and work expended in that outcome). For example, cars reduce the travel time from A to B, Internet reduces the amount of time sharing information, bitcoin reduces the amount of time making transactions (I'm aware that there are other uses, but let's leave it there for now). Since all humans have a limited amount of time (time scarcity), everyone will use every tool that demonstrates a reduction in the amount of work expended, does not matter the ideology. Just because there are people with ideologies using the tools, does not mean that there is correlation between the tool and that ideology, on the contrary, if you see a diversity of people adopting it (which is what I have seen with bitcoin), it is doing its job as a tool.